Monday, January 25, 2010

Lawyers, Democrats and Everybody Else

Bruce Walker asserts on his blog, "The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers' Party." No longer is the Democratic Party the party of the working class, or even particularly American. Instead they represent an international consortium of political and legal specialists, divorced from understanding everyday life. No wonder Mr Obama thinks the Guantanamo Bay detention camp should be shut down and the terrorist combatants tried in civilian court.

Walker goes on to explain the Republicans, at least those at the national level, tend not to be lawyers. Republicans tend to be doctors and businessmen, historians and manufacturers... that is, Republicans tend to be better connected to the human race.

Democrats, i.e. lawyers, are not closely connected to the working world, so they don't have a clue what makes it go. This is understandable: The law is a stern mistress; a lawyer rarely has time to get a grasp on anything else. The consequence is when a lawyer tries to make anything outside his profession work, he will probably fail. This fact alone helps explain why employment levels tend down during initial periods of Democrat control of Congress. (See Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey at http://data.bls.gov) We always have to go through the Democrats learning curve.

Congress is where the laws are made. The sitting President rarely makes actual laws. During 2008, Democrat-lawyers made rules about the environment, zoning, arts and science, "wage fairness" (whatever they mean by that), and they banned light bulbs. There is about an 18 month lag before any administrations policy begin to impact the economy. The policies that suited the Democrats during 2008 are now making the economy really sick.

But I digress....

There's a difference of perspective. If you are a doctor, you make a living by making others well. If the patient does not get better, the doctor may not get paid. A businessman makes money only as long as he serves others. If he doesn't, he doesn't get paid. History professors learn from the past to teach others how to avoid old mistakes. Well, this doesn't always work. Manufacturers complete the making of stuff people want to use. If nothing is finished, then manufacturers go unpaid. In each of these professions, money is made only if others are served.

On the other hand, lawyers claim to serve justice, i.e. no one in particular. I've no doubt some lawyers serve justice. But what is the incentive? When the case is completed, the lawyer is unemployed. So the incentive for a lawyer is to prolong the case, making everybody wait, so the lawyer has more "billable hours."

Everyone except lawyers gets ahead by easing the suffering and wants of humanity. A lawyer gets ahead when he prolongs those sufferings. When the lawyer controlled "Democratic" Party is in power, it is logical to expect human misery to grow.

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The always fresh Constitution

You hear politicians saying we need to change with the times. They say the US Constitution was for a time when America was a new nation. They say the Constitution must be read as a "living document," so that parts may be discarded because they get in the way of government control.

Why? Who requires that our nation no longer act like it is young? Our national need for fresh perspective should not change, so our Constitution is ideal as it is and has been for centuries. It always leads us down the fresh path.

Liberty

Freedom is matter of individual rights. Individuals are society's elements, therefore individuals naturally bear the burden of society.That means individuals have the right to use their lives, liberties, and properties as they see fit, as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others.

In the context of the modern state, this philosophy engenders a set of normative policy prescriptions that reflect a belief in the efficiency and morality of unhampered markets, the system of private property, and individual rights -- and a deep distrust of taxation, forced egalitarianism (which is always applied by elitists), compulsory welfare, and the power of the state, which is always the power of the "ruling class."